5.  The applicants were born in 1981 and 1980 respectively and live in Burgas.
6.  On the morning of 4 March 2007, while the applicants and a third person, Mr V., were in a hotel in Stara Zagora, the police entered their room and arrested Mr V., whose name was on a national list of wanted persons.
7.  At around 4 p.m. on the same day, when the two applicants were back in their hotel room, several police officers entered and searched the room. The applicants were taken to a police station, where they were questioned for about ten minutes on what business had brought them to Stara Zagora. No records were taken of the interviews.
8.  At around 6 p.m. the applicants were presented with written orders for their twenty-four-hour detention, drawn up under section 63(1)(1) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Act (“the MIAA”, see paragraph 25 below). The orders merely referred to section 63(1)(1) and to the Criminal Code provision concerning theft. They did not mention any factual grounds justifying a suspicion that the applicants had committed an offence.
9.  Upon being presented with the orders, the applicants stated that they wished to telephone a lawyer. The first applicant indicated the name and telephone number of his lawyer. According to the applicants, their lawyers were not contacted by the police and when, nonetheless, their relatives contacted another lawyer and he arrived at the police station the following morning, he was not allowed to see them.
10.  While in custody, the applicants were not questioned further or summoned for any other reason. They were released at 5.15 p.m. on 5 March 2007.
11.  On 9 August 2007 the applicants applied for judicial review of the detention orders of 4 March 2007, pointing out that the orders did not refer to any factual circumstances justifying a suspicion against them.
12.  In the course of the ensuing two sets of proceedings the police stated that the applicants had been arrested because they had been with Mr V., whose name was on a list of wanted persons and who, during his initial questioning, had not explained in a satisfactory manner what the three of them had been doing in Stara Zagora. In addition, on unspecified dates there had been several thefts in the city, which appeared to have been committed by persons coming from elsewhere. The applicants had already been suspected of having committed other thefts. Accordingly, it had been necessary to question them in order to verify what they had been doing in Stara Zagora and whether they had alibis. In addition, the police explained that it had been necessary to check “in detail” the applicants’ involvement in the thefts, because they had been behaving “rudely, arrogantly and in manifest disrespect of the set rules”.
13.  In two judgments dated 31 October 2007, containing largely identical reasoning, the Stara Zagora Administrative Court found that the detention orders were lawful. It considered that the reference to the Criminal Code provision on theft amounted to an indication of the relevant factual circumstances, and that the police had held sufficient information to justify a suspicion of a criminal offence. Moreover, the detention had served the legitimate purpose of “facilitating the carrying out of a police check-up unhindered”.
14.  In addition, the Administrative Court found that the applicants’ complaints that they had not had access to a lawyer were irrelevant, as they did not concern the lawfulness of the detention orders but merely their enforcement.
15.  Following appeals by the applicants, in two final judgments – of 24 April 2008 in the case of the first applicant and 3 July 2008 in the case of the second applicant – the Supreme Administrative Court (“the SAC”) upheld the lower court’s judgments, confirming its findings.
16.  At around 3 a.m. on 6 December 2007 the first applicant and a friend of his, Mr D., were arrested on a street in Burgas and taken to a police station, where the police issued orders for their twenty-four-hour detention. The order concerning the first applicant indicated that it had been issued on the basis of section 63(1) of the MIAA (see paragraph 25 below) and that he was suspected of having committed an offence. It mentioned no factual grounds justifying such a suspicion.
17.  Upon receipt of the detention order the applicant stated that he wished to contact a lawyer. However, he contended that he had not been allowed to do so and had only managed to call secretly from his mobile phone; the lawyer arrived at the police station and was allowed to meet him briefly.
18.  While in custody the first applicant was not questioned or summoned for any reason. He was kept at the police station until 2 a.m. on the next day, 7 December 2007, when he was released.
19.  On the day of his release the first applicant applied for judicial review of the detention order, pointing out that it contained no reasoning and that it had been unclear why he had been detained.
20.  In the course of the ensuing proceedings the police explained that the applicant and Mr D. had been seen by a police patrol carrying a plastic bag, which, on seeing the police, they had discarded in a nearby yard. When checked by the police, the bag had contained a pair of pliers. The officers had also found a pair of gloves close by. The first applicant and Mr D. had been suspected of several earlier thefts.
21.  The objects mentioned by the police – a pair of pliers and gloves – were apparently never seized for the purposes of a criminal investigation.
22.  In a judgment of 18 February 2008 the Burgas Administrative Court found the disputed detention order lawful, noting that the police’s explanations showed that there had been a reasonable suspicion that the first applicant had committed theft. Following an appeal lodged by the applicant, in a final judgment of 9 March 2009 the SAC upheld the lower court’s judgment.
23.  In a judgment of 20 March 2008, which entered into force on an unspecified date, the Burgas Administrative Court allowed Mr D.’s application for judicial review of his detention order and the order was subsequently quashed. The domestic court considered that it had been unclear what offence Mr D. had been suspected of, that there were no data in that regard and that no attempts to gather such data had been made during the detention. The circumstances of Mr D.’s detention were identical to those of the applicant.